By Manu Sharma
Bangalore International Airport Ltd implemented Fabric
Connect technology from Avaya to enable its network to scale in a robust
manner, improve productivity and offer services with faster turnaround times to
concessionaires.
The Scenario
Kempegowda International Airport, operated by Bangalore
International Airport Limited (BIAL) and serving the Indian city of Bangalore
is one of the largest green-field private sector owned and operated airports in
India. Covering approximately 4,000 acres, the airport is owned by a consortium
of investors, including private investors like GVK, Zurich Airport and Siemens,
as well as central government and state government bodies such as the Airport
Authority of India and Karnataka State Industrial and Infrastructure
Development Corporation (KSIIDC). The airport currently is India’s
third-largest in terms of passenger numbers by handling 12.86 million
passengers in 2013-14 and is expected to handle 20 million passengers a year by
2017. It is host to seven domestic airlines and twenty-six international
airlines connecting Bangalore to fifty-five destinations across India and the
world. In 2014 the airport was chosen as a hub airport by Air Asia India.
Business Challenges
BIAL provides network services for all tenants at Kempegowda
International Airport, which includes airline operations and offices, airport
concessionaires like ground handling companies, cargo and catering
organisations and fuel concessionaires, and commercial entities including
retail and food and beverage units at the airport. The airport network is all encompassing,
including the terminal building and all 50+ buildings across the campus, and
provides the flexibility of wired and wireless services on both the landside
and airside of the airport.
Since the airport is a multitenant environment, security and
segregation of traffic and services between the different tenants is of
critical importance. While the original terminal was designed for an annual
passenger capacity of around eight million, sustained growth has necessitated
expansion, with the facility now able to accommodate up to 20 million
passengers a year. So now there was a corresponding need for network expansion,
and BIAL needed a robust network, in order to provide 24/365 services to
millions of passengers dependent on always-on reliable and fast passenger
services delivered through numerous business critical airport applications.
The need of the hour was to build services within the
aviation policy framework - which sets out a policy to allow IT to make a significant
contribution to the operations of the airport, helping the aviation sector
contribute to economic growth across the country - and to be able to operate
within a multi-vendor environment.
In the expansion phase, BIAL identified four
major initiatives: additional capacity, segregation of the network between
critical airport applications and corporate network, upgrading the backbone for
higher performance, and ease of implementation and simplicity in the
operational framework. BIAL segregated its network into an application network
delivering customer facing applications like check-in and boarding processes
and real-time flight updates through flight display system (FIDS); a backbone
network to support BIAL corporate applications and its concessionaires’
networks; and a CCTV network to cater to multicast needs. Within this overall
framework, IT would be able to contribute support for ease of operations, and
also provide a secure and fast network and contribute to overall airport
revenues.
IT Challenges
Since the airport is a multi-tenant architecture; security
and segregation of traffic and services between the different tenants is of
paramount importance l BIAL needed a robust network to provide 24/365
connectivity, with carrier-grade reliability, for the airport’s business
critical applications l The need of the hour was to build services within the
aviation framework and be able to operate within a multi-vendor environment
The Solution
BIAL selected Avaya to provide a next-generation
fabric-based network virtualization solution that would support its rapidly
expanding application load, centering on a high-availability core that
leverages the Virtual Service Platform 9000 product. Along with this, BIAL
deployed products from the Ethernet Routing Switch 4000 Series and 5000 Series
product lines to incorporate high-speed, 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity to
the core. This architecture delivers a solution that is highly available,
delivering re-convergence times of less than 200 milliseconds – which means
that network downtime is virtually eliminated. The solution also offers a
dramatic increase in performance levels. Leveraging the agility enhancements
delivered by Fabric Connect technology, BIAL is now able to provision and turn
on new services on the fly – without the need for manual intervention or
reconfiguring multiple network elements.
Benefits
The Avaya solution has delivered a broad range of benefits
to the network and its users across the airport campus. High-Performance: A
virtualized, high-capacity network with a Core that is 40/100 Gigabit-ready,
and provides Gigabit-to-the-Desktop performance at the Edge. This translates
into a high-performance network that is perfect for modern converged
applications. The benefits of such a network include the ability to easily handle
the simultaneous operation of multiple applications, especially the Airport
Collaborative Decision Management (ACDM) implementation. BIAL has implemented the European standard and tracks 16 separate milestones, joining only 5 other airports which are fully ACDM certified. The network also supports ERP systems, passenger services systems like check-in and boarding, flight information, baggage reconciliation, and critical voice services - to name but a few. Crucially, the network is capable of seamlessly scaling up to thousands of nodes, which the airport may require due to the anticipated growth in aviation services with the new terminal (T2) and Aero City launching in due course. Resiliency: Avaya’s solution is capable of healing itself and resuming operations in sub-second time
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